Week of April 28th

Monday

This week got away from me, so we didn't do as much reading as I had hoped we would. The kids were still recovering from their sickness over the weekend, so Monday was pretty mellow. 

I was working on dinner that afternoon while Tommy was working on something at the table. He says, "I wish I had some gun powder.... Hey, mom, do we have any gun powder?" I told him no, we didn't, and went to see what he was up to. He was arranging a pile of matches in a circle, like a tiny bonfire inside a metal pan. He asked permission to light them. I told him he could, but he'd need to wait for Dad. Mark took them outside and let them light the fire. They have experience with lighting matches and being around fire, so they know enough not to get burned! This led a long discussion about the properties of fire and air, as well as the chemical that go into making matches. 

 Later Tommy wanted to melt chocolate chips into a mold to shape them into a piece of candy. First he tried putting them on a plastic lid and put it in the toaster oven. That didn't work because the plastic melted along with the chocolate chips. Then I suggested a metal plate. That worked, but the shape wasn't interesting enough. So then I showed him how to melt chocolate in a saucepan with a bit of milk (almond milk, since we are dairy-free). Then we poured the chocolate sauce into this donut mold and stuck it in the freezer to cool down. Tommy put the garnishes on!

Tuesday

On Tuesday it was wicked hot in the bay area, so we went to the coast. Our first stop was Monterey Bay Aquarium.

 Then we went to the beach. Tommy found a fish (already dead) and put it in his bucket to get a closer look. We never did figure out what kind of fish it was. The boys had a lot of fun playing in the waves. They were still a bit weak from their weekend illness, so we weren't able to stay at the beach as long as I would have liked. 

Wednesday

This was a mellow day. The boys did a bit of regular schoolwork and had piano lessons. After lunch we unexpectedly babysat the children of a friend. I love having wide open days so we can have the flexibility to help friends out when they need emergency babysitting! The kids (twin 3 year olds and a 1.5 year old) had a lot of fun playing together. It gives me the warm fuzzies to watch my boys play so well with children that are much younger than them.

While the kids were here, Tommy decided he wanted to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. He made most of the recipe by himself (I helped by making oat flour in our food processor). I realized that he is getting so capable of making recipes that I need to make him his own binder to keep all of his favorite recipes in. Otherwise I find my piles of papers torn apart from him searching for a favorite recipe!

Thursday

On Thursday we went grocery shopping, then headed to the park for a playdate with Lucy's playgroup. The boys met some friends there and played and scootered all over the park for about an hour. This was another very hot day, so we headed home and spent most of the rest of the day indoors. I pulled out this "In case of emergency" building set and the boys created structures with it for most of the day. We also watched several TedEd videos about tsunamis, the physics of ketchup, the chemistry of cookies, and the history of video games.

Friday

On Friday we went to the San Francisco Symphony for a special children's performance. I look forward to this particular field trip all year long. I love music so much and I want the boys to learn to love it as well, or at the very least be able to appreciate it! Earlier in the week we listened to the music that would be performed (pieces by Scott Joplin, Antonín Dvořák, Aaron Copland, and several others) and read the composers' biographies and stories behind each piece of music. The boys don't look very happy in this picture because I had to wake them up very early so we could leave the house by 7:00am!

It has been our tradition to go to other fun places in the city after the symphony. This week I was fighting off some kind of bug and was too tired to go anywhere else. So we went Krispy Kreme on the way home, then stopped by Mark's office at Oracle. That night we let them stay up as late as they wanted while we caught a TV show. Around 9:30pm we went outside to find them like this: